NBD: Aklot Bass Ukulele

Arcy

Strummin' in the Rain
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Mini Aklot review (ok. maybe not so mini. I'm a rambler. TLDR version: Looks good. Feels good. Plays easily. Bad pickup. Bummer.

After discussing fretless U-Basses with some folks on Facebook last week I insomnia-bought one of the Aklot uke bases (https://www.amazon.com/Electric-Blackwood-Prof…/…/B07Z4FVCL4 ). I admit it: I'm a sucker for 20% off coupons at O'dark thirty.

The pictures looked good. The description was pretty wonky (the truss rod is not primarily for adjusting the action, and the point of fretless is not to save your fingers from scratches #pettynitpick). In my head I mixed up Aklot & Enya - the write up and pictures looked very Enya-is, and I have a pretty good impression of Enya. The next day I realized my mistake. There are a lot worse morning afters.

Today a giant box arrived on my doorstep. Seriously giant: 22"x36"x15". Inside was a uke-size box wrapped in a wisp of craft paper. No other padding. Not impressive. No idea if that's Aklot's fault of Amazon's.
Aklot - Big Box.jpg


In the small box things looked better: the Ubass was packed in a pretty solid looking foam case along with a strap and a pair of batteries. I didn't actually pull the case of the box, but it looked like it would provide some protection. It's much better than the typical cheap-uke dustcover. So far all pretty good, and no obvious damage from being loose packed in the giant box.

The bass itself looks pretty decent. It's very pretty: better than in the pictures, which were pretty good. I didn't give a thorough examination, but no obvious flaws jumped out at me. The fretboard looked and felt like a photographic laminate rather than wood or epoxy. Not my favorite, but not a real problem. No frets, so obviously no problems with them.

AKLOT - Da Uke.jpg

No surprise: the thunder guts took quite a bit to tune up to pitch, and I had to touch up a few times while giving it a test run. This is what I expect from fresh thunder guts.

Also as expected, there wasn't much volume played acoustically. According to my dB meter it registered just under 70 dB about a foot from the sound hole. For comparison, my baritone registers around 80 dB at the same distance.
It's loud enough for acoustic practice at home, but not ideal. I doubt you'd get anywhere playing it unamplified with others. It'd be a good traveller: you could probably play it in a hotel room without bothering the neighbors.

I walked a short trip around the circle of fifths and was pretty pleased - the sound and feel were pretty good. The thunderguts felt a lot better on the fretless than they do on my fretted solid-body uke bass. At acoustic volume I couldn't hear the pitch well enough to judge intonation, but on a fretless intonation's on me not the uke.

Plugged in to my 12" practice amp it made a mighty boom. Rubber strings on a uke bass sound really cool and very different from an electric bass guitar. I'm a fan.

Walking the same circle of 5ths sounded great on the D string, then up to the A string, and on the E string. And then I got to the G string. Where's the ka-boom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering ka-boom?

As is unfortunately too typical with cheap uke basses, the pickup didn't pick up all of the strings evenly. Reseating the strings over the bridge didn't make any difference, and I couldn't see any way at the pickup without doing more disassembly than I'm willing to do.

So the bottom line is that it's 3/4 great, but that remaining 1/4 means it's going to go back rather than going to uke group with me this week. Bummer.
 
Too bad Arcy. I have a number of bass ukes, acoustic and solid body with the same pickup assembly, and they are hit and miss regarding volume balance. In a couple of cases it was the strings, in a couple of cases I returned it for a replacement, and a couple of times I took the suggestion of a thread to disassemble the pickup assembly and cut apart the plastic saddle so that each section is pressed onto the pickup underneath individually. I've also found sources for the pickup assembly and replaced them. In every case, it worked. But I understand being disappointed and returning it.


This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 13 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 37)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers
 
My solid-body had a similar problem on the D string, but it fixed pretty easily: I pulled the string off, pushed the saddle down to make sure it seated well, then reseated the string and all was well. I looked over various comments about splitting the saddle into pieces like you say, but I didn't need to do so and I never figured out how to actually get that saddle out of the bridge. This one looks pretty much the same, and I still can't figure out how to get it out safely, and I don't want to perform surgery on this one.

Waiting for a replacement will be harder than waiting for this to arrive in the first place. I did really enjoy playing the fretless flooby strings!
 
Mini Aklot review (ok. maybe not so mini. I'm a rambler. TLDR version: Looks good. Feels good. Plays easily. Bad pickup. Bummer.

After discussing fretless U-Basses with some folks on Facebook last week I insomnia-bought one of the Aklot uke bases (https://www.amazon.com/Electric-Blackwood-Prof…/…/B07Z4FVCL4 ). I admit it: I'm a sucker for 20% off coupons at O'dark thirty.

The pictures looked good. The description was pretty wonky (the truss rod is not primarily for adjusting the action, and the point of fretless is not to save your fingers from scratches #pettynitpick). In my head I mixed up Aklot & Enya - the write up and pictures looked very Enya-is, and I have a pretty good impression of Enya. The next day I realized my mistake. There are a lot worse morning afters.


Today a giant box arrived on my doorstep. Seriously giant: 22"x36"x15". Inside was a uke-size box wrapped in a wisp of craft paper. No other padding. Not impressive. No idea if that's Aklot's fault of Amazon's.
View attachment 123760

In the small box things looked better: the Ubass was packed in a pretty solid looking foam case along with a strap and a pair of batteries. I didn't actually pull the case of the box, but it looked like it would provide some protection. It's much better than the typical cheap-uke dustcover. So far all pretty good, and no obvious damage from being loose packed in the giant box.

The bass itself looks pretty decent. It's very pretty: better than in the pictures, which were pretty good. I didn't give a thorough examination, but no obvious flaws jumped out at me. The fretboard looked and felt like a photographic laminate rather than wood or epoxy. Not my favorite, but not a real problem. No frets, so obviously no problems with them.


View attachment 123761

No surprise: the thunder guts took quite a bit to tune up to pitch, and I had to touch up a few times while giving it a test run. This is what I expect from fresh thunder guts.

Also as expected, there wasn't much volume played acoustically. According to my dB meter it registered just under 70 dB about a foot from the sound hole. For comparison, my baritone registers around 80 dB at the same distance.
It's loud enough for acoustic practice at home, but not ideal. I doubt you'd get anywhere playing it unamplified with others. It'd be a good traveller: you could probably play it in a hotel room without bothering the neighbors.

I walked a short trip around the circle of fifths and was pretty pleased - the sound and feel were pretty good. The thunderguts felt a lot better on the fretless than they do on my fretted solid-body uke bass. At acoustic volume I couldn't hear the pitch well enough to judge intonation, but on a fretless intonation's on me not the uke.

Plugged in to my 12" practice amp it made a mighty boom. Rubber strings on a uke bass sound really cool and very different from an electric bass guitar. I'm a fan.

Walking the same circle of 5ths sounded great on the D string, then up to the A string, and on the E string. And then I got to the G string. Where's the ka-boom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering ka-boom?

As is unfortunately too typical with cheap uke basses, the pickup didn't pick up all of the strings evenly. Reseating the strings over the bridge didn't make any difference, and I couldn't see any way at the pickup without doing more disassembly than I'm willing to do.

So the bottom line is that it's 3/4 great, but that remaining 1/4 means it's going to go back rather than going to uke group with me this week. Bummer.
I have this aklot from almost a year now, and i agree perfectly with your review, only difference is that my volume problem was primarily on the A string, than sometimes on the E, very disappointing.. My fast solution was to slap the saddle with my thumbs and it will work again for a while, maybe affecting the volume of the other string, but as you can imagine is a big trouble if you are playing live. Well, after a year i finally decided to cut the saddles apart, and now I'm going to put them back (hopefully in the right order, because i didn't pay enough attention) with the new thunder brown strings from Aquila; I'll let you know if i can make a reliable instrument out of it, if you are interested.
 
I have this aklot from almost a year now, and i agree perfectly with your review, only difference is that my volume problem was primarily on the A string, than sometimes on the E, very disappointing.. My fast solution was to slap the saddle with my thumbs and it will work again for a while, maybe affecting the volume of the other string, but as you can imagine is a big trouble if you are playing live. Well, after a year i finally decided to cut the saddles apart, and now I'm going to put them back (hopefully in the right order, because i didn't pay enough attention) with the new thunder brown strings from Aquila; I'll let you know if i can make a reliable instrument out of it, if you are interested.
I would recommend not cutting all the way through the saddle. Leave a thin connection between the sections. That will make reassembly easier. The thin connection will give the saddle the flexibility it needs.
 
Unfortunately i didn't read your answer in time, i had some trouble putting it back correctly. Anyway, the problem seems solved, the only matter is that the two middle sections are kept in place just by the strings and are a bit offset; that doesn't seem to affect anything though. Now I'm thinking about to substitute the plastic saddle with hand made (by myself, if i succeed) from wood or bones: what do you think, it's a good idea or am i wasting my time? The new aquila strings are very thin, almost like a regular bass string, and this make the intonation more precise on the fretless. The tone improved, too: very jazzy G string and clearer E string timber, I totally suggest them.
 
Do NOT click on the above link, it's probably spam, I reported it! 😖
 
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